Many vehicles are designed to transport freight, goods, merchandise, personal property, and other such cargo. An operator often utilizes a hitch assembly to connect a towed vehicle to a towing vehicle, e.g., connecting a trailer to a pick-up truck, to increase the capacity to transport cargo. Many types of coupling devices have been developed for providing this connection between towing and towed vehicles.
It is well known to utilize a hitch to connect a towed vehicle to a towing vehicle. There are many different types of hitches that may be attached to the towing vehicle in a variety of ways, depending on the type of hitch used. For example, some fifth wheel hitches mount to the frame underneath the bed of the pickup truck while other fifth wheel hitches mount to an above bed mounting system.
Traditional fifth wheel hitches include a head assembly for receiving a king pin on a towed vehicle, a base having a plurality of legs, and one or more mounting rails. In some systems, the legs of the fifth wheel hitch are designed to be secured to mounting rails that are attached above the bed or on the bed of the towing vehicle. In other systems, the mounting rails may be fixed to the frame of a vehicle underneath the bed. For example, the mounting rails may be connected between two portions of a pickup truck frame underneath the truck bed. The mounting rails may include a plurality of apertures for receiving the legs of the fifth wheel hitch. Corresponding openings may be cut in the truck bed and aligned with the apertures in the mounting rails. The legs of the fifth wheel hitch may be connected to apertures in the mounting rails through the openings in the truck bed, thereby securing the fifth wheel hitch to the frame of the vehicle.
This configuration, however, may limit the available fifth wheel hitches that may be attached to a specific vehicle. There are a wide variety of fifth wheel hitches on the market, many of which have very different mounting configurations, including those that may only be capable of being secured above the load bed of the vehicle. Moreover, the under bed mounting systems have fixed mounting points, which may limit the available adjustability of the system. Accordingly, a particular configuration of an under bed mounting system may fit only a limited amount of configurations of fifth wheel hitches. This may limit the variety of fifth wheel hitches that may attach to a particular under bed hitch mounting system. There is a need, therefore, for an apparatus to overcome these limitations and to provide a mounting system to which accessories such as fifth wheel hitches of different varieties may attach.